


Protectors

by Byrcca



Series: Fixed It For Ya! (You Know What You Did/Didn’t Do) [6]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Beyer-verse, F/M, Kirsten Beyer, Pregnancy, Protectors, Replicator Malfunction, Rewritten book scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 04:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17135159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byrcca/pseuds/Byrcca
Summary: A rewrite of a scene in Kirsten Beyer’s relaunch novel, Protectors involving a relicator, a pregnancy, a craving, and a whole lot of disappointment for me.





	Protectors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SeemaG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeemaG/gifts).



> This is that scene in _Protectors_ by Kirsten Beyer, pages 70-73 inclusive, rewritten. _That_ scene. To be honest, it’s been a while, and I don’t even remember the events in the book. I dislike her OCs, and found the Big Plot boring. But THIS scene stuck in my head. 
> 
> Let’s just say that in the original, the roles were reversed, nobody laughed, and they ended up a little pissed off at each other. Plus, it took place in the middle of the night and it was condescending and promoted a hurtful stereotype. Really, I expect better of a female author who, I believe, has kids of her own.
> 
> That’s not to say that it was wholly awful, there were a few laughs in there but, on the whole, it wasn’t awe-full.

Seema, this is for you because you asked. Merry Christmas. 

 

 

B’Elanna was catapulted awake by a strident, persistent beeping. She hadn’t been sleeping well lately and that, combined with the lingering fatigue of the first trimester of her pregnancy, meant it took her a few moments to clear the cobwebs from her brain and recognize the sound that had pervaded her subconscious and jolted her to alertness. Not red alert, but an emergency alarm nonetheless. Hard on that realization came a recognition of the bitter, acrid scent of smoke, and her pulse rate shot up as she bolted out of bed. 

A primal fear sent her running out of the bedroom in her underwear, calling to her husband, “Tom!” Fire on a starship, eating up the oxygen, and a room full of smoke between her and her child!

“It’s okay,” he replied, his voice coming from the other end of the room. She could barely hear him over the sound of her pulse pounding in her ears, and seeing him proved a problem. He was standing near the dining area, almost engulfed in a billowing cloud of smoke. “Stay back!” he shouted at her. 

She covered her mouth and nose with her crook’d arm, and her eyes darted toward Miral’s bedroom door. She was about to make a mad dash around Tom when he turned his back to her and bumped her back toward their bedroom. She stumbled and coughed, and watched as he brought up a metallic cylinder and took a step toward the smoke. She jumped at the loud _whoosh_ as he activated the portable fire-suppression unit. 

“Computer,” she called, “initiate emergency air exchange.”

There was a soft _humm_ and B’Elanna felt a breeze brush her bare skin, then the air began to clear. Tom sprayed what she now recognized as the remains of their replicator with fire-suppressant foam, and it dripped and puddled on the carpet as it overflowed the counter. She was mentally running through a checklist of all the things that could have possibly gone wrong with the replicator, and weighing the pros and cons of ordering them offline shipwide until she was certain this was an isolated incident. 

“It’s okay,” Tom repeated. “I think I got it.” He set the canister at his feet and took a step toward the charred and twisted console. Scorch marks streaked the wall, black, sooty fingers shooting sixty centimeters toward the ceiling, and exposed innards shone accusingly as the foam melted and dripped into the replicator’s circuitry. It looked like he’d blasted it with a photon torpedo.

“What happened?” B’Elanna asked. “Did it malfunction? Why didn’t _Voyager’s_ fire-response system initiate?”

Tom looked sheepish. “I took it offline. I thought the heat from the burners might…well.” 

“Burners?” B’Elanna stepped closer, being careful to keep her bare feet out of the pools of melted chemicals, and peered more closely at their former food provider. She did indeed recognize a jury-rigged burner, and a cooking pan, both having slid inside the melted, gaping hole that had been the replicator’s shelf. She stared at her husband, slack-jawed and thoroughly confused. “What did you think you were doing?”

Tom had pulled his now soaked and filthy t-shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor, over the mess. “You set up burners in the mess when we were first stuck out here,” he said. 

She blinked at him and frowned. “Yes. I’m an engineer. I’m trained to work with power systems and… Why did you install a burner…?” Her voice trailed off and she glanced at the mess that used to be their dining room wall. 

Now that her morning sickness had receded and her appetite was back, B’Elanna had cycled through cravings. First it was apples, then, gods help them, pleeka rind casserole, and lately it had been _ghabjebaQ joqngogh_ , a vegetable and fried meat sandwich made of flatbread that had been grilled over an open flame. She had tried replicating it, then tried again. And again, each time tweaking the recipe just a bit, reminiscent of Tom’s many attempts at plain tomato soup. She’d claimed that none of the versions had tasted quite right, and though Tom wasn’t certain what it was _supposed_ to taste like, he had a reasonable grasp on what it _wasn’t_. 

Conditioned by the scarcity of replicated meals during their first _tour_ of the Delta Quadrant, Tom hadn’t been willing to let them go to waste and had eaten eight of the damn things in the last six days. He was starting to look like he’d entered his own second trimester along with his wife. 

“You said that _ghabjebaQ joqngogh_ is supposed to be grilled and I thought…” Tom shrugged. 

“You…?” The look of stunned surprise slid from her face and her features crumpled, her lips clamping together and her eyes squinting shut. He chin quivered. She brought up a hand and covered her mouth and turned away from him, her shoulders shaking. 

“Hey,” Tom said, sliding his hands up her arms to cup her shoulders and draw her back against his chest. Whether it was the extreme morning sickness, or the lack of decent rest, or the hormones, she’d been more emotional this time around than she’d been when she was carrying Miral. Tom turned her gently in his arms and kissed her forehead, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. 

“Hey, shhhh.” He pulled her more securely into his embrace and she burrowed her face into his bare shoulder. His heart swelled with love for this mercurial woman, fierce warrior one moment, tender, sentimental watering pot the next. He rested his cheek on her head. “It’s just a sandwich.” 

She convulsed, then brought up a hand and shoved at his shoulder, hung on as her knees gave out and laughter exploded from her. Her body shook, tears did indeed leak from her eyes but they had little to do with mushy sentiment. Tom cocked an eyebrow, resisting the grin that tugged on his own mouth. 

“Are you laughing at me, dearest?” he asked trying, and failing, to keep a straight face. 

“Oh. No.” She snorted and that brought on a new wave of hooting laughter, and Tom joined in this time, pulling her closer and chortling into her shoulder. 

“I wanted to surprise you with breakfast,” he said

“Well, you did that!” That set her off again and Tom had to clutch onto her waist to keep her from sinking to the floor as she hooted. She sobered a little, and drew a ragged breath. “That was so sweet of you, thanks.” She kissed his cheek.

They didn’t notice Miral had woken and left her room until she was tugging on Tom’s pajama pants. He looked down into her sleepy, scowling face, and bent to pick her up. At three-and-a-half, she was getting tall and heavy, and Tom wondered how much longer she would allow him to carry her around. 

Miral snuggled into her daddy’s shoulder, looping one arm around her mother’s neck while the other cuddled Toby Too!, her stuffed Targ. Her warm breath fanned across Tom’s throat. 

“I want pancakes and _mable_ syrup,” she stated. 

“You do?” Tom asked. B’Elanna grinned at him over the top of their daughter’s head. 

“Yes!” She nodded vigorously, rubbing her nose against his collarbone. 

“How about,” Tom suggested, “for a treat, we have breakfast in the mess hall?”

She popped her head up and clapped her hands, dropping Toby Too!. “Yes!” Tom watched her eyes grow round as she spied the remains of their replicator. In her surprise, she seemed to forget about the stuffed animal. “Did it have a axe’dent?” she asked.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“I’ll call in a crew to clean this up,” B’Elanna said, gesturing to the mess. 

“What will you tell them?!” Tom was thinking of his position as XO; his reputation as Chakotay’s second, overseeing _Voyager’s_ crew. Then again, he was in charge of shift rotations, and shore leave. He didn’t think he’d have too much of a problem swearing them to secrecy. 

“I don’t have to tell them anything: I’m the fleet Chief.” She smiled and held out her arms to Miral. “Come on. Let’s use the bathroom and get dressed.”

Miral nodded and leaned into her, then pointed toward the floor. Luckily, Toby Too! had missed a puddle of goo by a good ten centimetres. Tom stooped and plucked him up, handed him to his daughter, then swooped in and kissed both his _ladies_. In four or five months, he wouldn’t be outnumbered any more. He watched them head toward the bathroom, then raised a hand to tap his chest and froze, and chuckled. Old habits die hard. 

He tilted his head toward the ceiling. “Commander Paris to engineering,” he called. “I’m having a problem with my replicator.”

“ _I’ll send someone right away, sir,_ ” came the prompt reply. 

Tom grinned and headed for the shower. 

 

~~~~~~~


End file.
